The Benzonia plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Mostly cloudy
Mostly cloudy
Mostly sunny
Mostly sunny
Partly cloudy
Chance of showers
Partly cloudy
5° on Nov. 17, 1959, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1898. Next is 11° in 1933.
Benzonia’s center stands about 820 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 600 ft to 920 ft, a difference of 320 ft: rolling country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Warner Hill, about 1,160 ft, 15 miles northeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Antrim Shale (black-shale), from the Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 39×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Middle Devonian, 384 to 394 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
Black-shale. Age: Late Devonian, 359 to 384 million years old. About 6 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Benzonia reaches Lake Michigan by way of the Betsie: about 7 river miles. From there it moves on through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Benzonia; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Benzonia has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 78° in July; winter nights fall to about 19° in January. A normal year brings about 93 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 34 inches of water.
On November 14 Benzonia normally reaches 44° and falls to 33°. The record high is 62°, in 1964; the record low 12°, in 1933. The most rain on this date, 1.00 in, fell in 1916.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1898 at Frankfort 2 NE, 6 miles west-northwest, 130 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
